--- title: West Point: Photos of the Cadets by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1936 description: A gallery of photos made by Alfred Eisenstaedt for the cover story of the second issue of LIFE magazine — a 1936 feature on cadets at West Point. canonical: https://time.com/3875277/west-point-photos-of-the-cadets-by-alfred-eisenstaedt-1936/ author: Liz Ronk article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2012-12-16T01:23:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:54.487Z og:title: West Point: Photos of the Cadets by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1936 og:description: A gallery of photos made by Alfred Eisenstaedt for the cover story of the second issue of LIFE magazine — a 1936 feature on cadets at West Point. og:url: https://time.com/3875277/west-point-photos-of-the-cadets-by-alfred-eisenstaedt-1936/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt87d36f74a3076a61/698848ed35ba6f0483c0c829/23_115656507.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: West Point, 1936 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: West Point: Photos of the Cadets by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1936 twitter:description: A gallery of photos made by Alfred Eisenstaedt for the cover story of the second issue of LIFE magazine — a 1936 feature on cadets at West Point. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt87d36f74a3076a61/698848ed35ba6f0483c0c829/23_115656507.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Corps Values: LIFE at West Point, 1936 by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Dec 16, 2012 1:23 AM UTC  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936.Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Dec 16, 2012 1:23 AM UTC The first issue of a magazine — especially a magazine that hopes to help define the era in which it lives — the first issue is always a big deal. It sets the tone for everything to come. It’s a pronouncement, a statement of purpose. It shows readers what they can expect, and it tells everyone (including, of course, other publications) just what this new title is made of. When LIFE magazine launched in November 1936, the people behind it — including Henry Luce, who had co-founded TIME magazine more than decade earlier — made it clear from the start that this was not going to be just another picture magazine. The cover story in that first issue, featuring Margaret Bourke-White’s magnificent photographs of the men, women and machines building the monumental Fort Peck Dam in Montana, set a visual storytelling standard that, to this day, has never been exceeded. No one would argue that every single one of the more than 2,000 issues that LIFE published between November ’36 and December 1972 was a classic. But that first issue showed anyone and everyone who saw it that here was a publication that intended to stick around — and aimed to change the way that subscribers and readers expected from a weekly magazine. But what about LIFE’s _second_ issue? Like Larry Doby (the second black major league ballplayer, after Jackie Robinson) or Buzz Aldrin (the second man on the moon) or John Landy (the second man to break the four-minute mile), the second issue of a weekly as ambitious and audacious as LIFE might feel, inevitably, like something of an afterthought. And yet, in some ways, it’s even more important than the first issue. Hell, anyone can put out _one_ issue of a magazine; the real test comes when one has to put out another, and another, and another, week after week, for years on end — and make it _matter_. In retrospect, of course, LIFE made it matter more deeply and to more readers for more issues than almost any other title in the history of American magazines. The very name, “LIFE magazine,” is familiar to people who weren’t even born when it stopped publishing more than 40 years ago. So, quite obviously, that November 1936 first issue heralded great things. But here, on the second of January, 2013, LIFE.com wanted to pay tribute to LIFE magazine’s second issue — and to often-forgotten seconds everywhere. Doby, Landy, Aldrin and all the other men and women who have followed on the heels — frequently _hard_ on the heels — of more famous pioneers deserve recognition, too, and so does that all-important second issue of a magazine that intends to utterly transform the way that people think about a weekly publication. Here, then, is a gallery of photos made by Alfred Eisenstaedt for the cover story of the second issue of LIFE — a feature on cadets at West Point. This might not have been the first cover story LIFE ever ran; but it’s first-rate, nevertheless.  In Grant Reception Hall parents chat with their soldier sons till bugles sound dress parade, West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Every piece of apparel in this West Pointer's locker has its regulation place." Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Under their blouses cadets wear this regulation shirt. In warm weather they may remove the blouse indoors." Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "In a stentorian voice the cadet adjutant 'publishes' the Orders of the Day to 1,650 cadets at noon mess." Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Sunday. Church at 10:40 a.m. is compulsory." Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "A regular army sergeant instructs potential U.S. generals in the art of loading shells in a French 75." Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Caption from LIFE. "Cadets of the Class of '38 learn to hitch the well-fed horses to artillery carriages in the gun shed." Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not originally published in LIFE. West Point, 1936. 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